Something I dislike about the social “norm” (in this country at least) is the way that, when you are in a group, there always needs to be speech. If nobody speaks for a few seconds, the situation begins to feel uncomfortable.

Why do we feel the need to cram every moment we are with other people with talking? We can’t really be experiencing what is happening, or listening to life around us if we are talking over the top all the time. Not to say that talking isn’t important, we can learn so much from talking to people, but most of what we feel cant be pinned down and formed into words. The very act of trying to force a feeling into speech destroys the experience of having that feeling in the first place, we move from “feeling” to “doing”.

On the flip side, I guess we have a lot of time alone to listen and feel, and when we come together with others that is a time to try and express some of those sensations. To try and share some of our existence with others, to feel part of humanity, feel the warmth of communion with other souls.

I have been listening through the Reith Lectures on Radio 4, given by the conductor Daniel Barenboim. He has been talking about how he feels the ear has become neglected in this “visual society”, and although I wouldn’t agree with a lot of what he says, he has a point. Listening seems to have become a forgotten sense in some ways. I feel we might be missing out on so much by not taking enough time to really listen.

To listen, to really listen, alone or with others, is something so important, and so enlightening. Not necessarily to something specific, like music, but just to the world around us, the sound of living.